Mazda developed a special resin aimed at reducing the weight of parts of its vehicles

- The all-new Mazda CX-5 inherits from ultralights shields -

In collaboration with the Japan Polypropylene Corporation company, Mazda Motor Corporation has developed for parts of its vehicles, a special resin to guarantee the same rigidity as conventional resins while offering a significant weight gain. Parts made in this new material are thinner than those using a conventional resin, or a net reduction of the amount of resin needed to manufacture them. Used for the manufacture of bumpers front and rear, it can reduce their weight by about 20%.

As part of the production process shields, this reduced thickness of material allowed to shorten the cooling time during the molding phase, besides it was possible to optimize the fluidity of the resin by using the manufacturing techniques assisted by computer. Thus, the molding time shields, which was previously 60 seconds, could be divided by two, which resulted in a significant reduction of the amount of energy consumed during the production process.

Mazda plans to mount these lightweight shields on all vehicles.